A swimming pool poster has been slammed as racist after seeming to portray black children as ‘not cool’.
The water safety poster, made by the American Red Cross, depicts a busy swimming pool scene in which kids breaking the rules are branded ‘not cool’ reports The Mirror.
Sounds harmless enough, but it has sparked outrage after apparently disproportionately portraying young black swimmers as ‘not cool’.
Speaking to 9 News , Margaret Sawyer said she was shocked by the humanitarian organisation’s poster after spotting it at two different pools.
She said:
I thought: “It must be really outdated – this can’t possibly be a recent poster.”
I just kept thinking: “It looks like they’re trying to do something here that shows all kids together of all different backgrounds, but they’re clearly not hitting the mark.”
Margaret posted a photo of the sign on Facebook and it quickly went viral, with many Twitter users unsurprisingly agreeing with her:
Although a lot of people saw no problem with it at all:
The Red Cross has now apologised for the poster and released a statement saying:
The American Red Cross appreciates and is sensitive to the concerns raised regarding one of the water safety posters we produced.
We deeply apologise for any misunderstanding – it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone.
We are committed to diversity and inclusion in all that we do, every day. We have removed the poster from our website and Swim App and have discontinued production.
How on earth did no one notice sooner?
